Oh, if I had been loved at the age of seventeen, what an idiot I would be today. Happiness is like smallpox: if you catch it too soon, it can completely ruin your constitution. – Gustave Flaubert
Art requires neither complaisance nor politeness nothing but faith, faith and freedom. – Gustave Flaubert
The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments. – Gustave Flaubert
The better a work is, the more it attracts criticism it is like the fleas who rush to jump on white linens. – Gustave Flaubert